Abstract
In this chapter, first I describe two polarities at work within Catholicism and indicate their relevance to an understanding of the enterprise of Catholic education. I then suggest that a critical appreciation of the relationship between these two polarities has a significance for Catholics that extends beyond schooling. In this second section I also show how those outside the Catholic community, concerned with promoting liberal democracy in a pluralist society, might apply some of the conceptual categories and lines of approach adopted here to their own enquiries. Third, some of the new challenges facing Catholic schools are then summarised. This is followed by an attempt to show both loss and gain in the responses made by Catholic educators to changes in their environment. Fifth, consideration is given to the accusation that Catholic schools are insufficiently distinctive or counter-cultural. The need for a fresh articulation of the rationale for Catholic education is highlighted in section six and this is followed by a brief indication of the kind of balance that will be striven for throughout the rest of the book. The final section of the chapter is meant to serve as an advance organiser for readers, orienting them to the main angles of approach and the types of sources they can expect to encounter should they proceed further.
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Notes for Chapter 1
In England and Wales, the launch of any major religious education programme for Catholic schools always seems surrounded by controversy and bitter accusations of either excessive accommodation and `sellout’ to contemporary culture or of a disregard for the real experience and the diverse needs of students.
For sophisticated and balanced French and Belgian discussions on the relationship between a faith tradition and contemporary culture in the teaching of religion, see André Fossion, La Cathéchèse dans le champ de la communication, Paris, Cerf, 1990; Xavier Thevenot & Jean Joncheray, Pour une éthique de la pratique éducative, Paris, Desclee, 1991; Camille Focant (ed), L’Enseignement de la religion au carrefour de la théologie et de la pédagogie, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994; Bernadette Wiame, Pour une inculturation de l’enseignement religieux, Brussels, Lumen Vitae, 1997. See also International Journal of Education and Religion, vol. 1 (1), 2000, which explores many of the challenges that multiculturalism and pluralism present for religiously affiliated schools and for religious education. Contributors to this issue come from the USA, The Netherlands, Germany, and the UK.
Jim Gallagher, Soil for the Seed, Great Wakering, McCrimmons, 2001, p.85.
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, Inter-Institute Collaboration for Formation, Boston, Pauline Books, 1999, p.17.
For impressive attempts to relate Catholic Christianity to religious pluralism, see Michael Barnes, Religions in Conversation, London, SPCK, 1989; Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, New York, Orbis, Books, 1999; and Joseph O’Leary, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1996. On the relationship between Catholicism and liberalism, see R. Bruce Douglass and David Hollenbach (eds), Catholicism and Liberalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994; Kenneth Grasso, Gerard Bradley and Robert Hunt (eds), Catholicism, Liberalism, & Communitarianism, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995; Gene Burns, The Frontiers of Catholicism, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992. From a different (Reformed) Christian tradition, see Richard Mouw and Sander Griffioen, Pluralisms & Horizons, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans, 1993. See also Pierre Manent (translated by Marc LePain), The City of Man, Princeton University Press, 1998.
For an example of the first, see Fatima Mernissi, Islam and Democracy, London, Virago Press, 1993; for an example of the second, see Michael Rosenak, Roads to the Palace, (Jewish texts and teaching), Oxford, Bergbahn, 1999.
See Michael Sande!, Democracy’s Discontent; and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and disagreement, (both Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996.)
On these and related questions, see Robert Bellah (et al, eds), Habits of the Heart, London, Hutchinson, 1988; Bellah (et al, eds) The Good Society, New York, Vintage Books, 1991; E. F. Paul, F. Miller and J. Paul (eds), The Communitarian Challenge to Liberalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Louis Porcher & Martine Abdallah-Pretceille, Éthique de la diversité et éducation, 1998 ; Henri Pena-Ruiz, Dieu et Marianne: Philosophie de la laicité, 1999; both Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.
On these issues, see Eamonn Callan, Creating Citizens, 1997; Meira Levinson, The demands of liberal education, 1999, both Oxford, Oxford University Press; James Dwyer, Religious Schools V. Children’s Rights, Cornell University Press, 1998; James Fraser, Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in America, New York, Macmillan Press, 1999.
Robert Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, provides an important investigation into these issues. Signe Sandsmark, Is World View Neutral Education Possible and Desirable?, Paternoster Press, 2000 offers a Christian response (from a Lutheran perspective) to liberal arguments. On contemporary Church-State relationships in the domain of public service organisations, including faith-based schools in the USA, Germany and the Netherlands, see Charles Glenn, The Ambiguous Embrace, Princeton University Press, 2000. On reconciling universal and particular perspectives, see Thomas Green, Walls: Education in Communities of Text and Liturgy, University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. Also on the role of religion in public education see Martin Marty, Education,Religion and the Common Good, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2000; Stephen Webb, Taking Religion To School, Grand Rapids, Brazos, Press, 2000; Russell, McCutcheon, Critics Not Caretakers, New York, State University of New York Press, 2001.
Brian Stiltner, Religion and the Common Good, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p.11.
See Michael McGrath, The Price of Faith: The Catholic Church and Catholic Schools in Northern Ireland, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1999; Denis Carroll (ed), Religion in Ireland: Past Present & Future, Dublin, Columba Press, 1999.
Johannes Van der Ven, Education for Reflective Ministry, Louvain, Peeters, 1998, pp.26–7, 35.
Ibid., p.35.
Ibid., pp.12, 37.
On the importance of collective memory for religious communities, see Danièle Hervieu-Léger, La Religion Pour Mémoire, Paris, Cerf, 1993.
Herman Lombaerts, The Management and Leadership of Christian Schools, translated by Terry Collins, Groot Bijgaarden [Belgium], Vlaams Lassallianns Perspectief, 1998, p.14.
Ibid., pp.80–81.
Hervieu-Léger, op. cit., p.105.
Ibid., p.172.
On the need for Catholic schools to offer an alternative to predominant cultural norms, see Thomas Giardino in Catholic School Leadership, edited by Thomas Hunt, Thomas Oldenski and Theodore Wallace, London, Falmer Press, 2000, p.28. James Heft in the same collection (p.212), says: `ultimately, the leaders of Catholic schools, colleges and universities should never desire that their graduates simply “fit into” society but rather that they should help transform it.’
Thomas Hunt, Thomas Oldenski and Theodore Wallace, ibid., p.2.
Robert McLaughlin, in The Common Things, edited by Daniel Mclnerny, American Maritain Association, The Catholic University of America, 1999, pp.102–117, especially pp. 107, 109, 115. For debates about Catholic Higher Education, see, in addition to Mclnerny, John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 1990; Philip Gleason, Contending With Modernity,New York, Oxford University Press, 1995; Michael Buckley, The Promise and Project of the Catholic University, Washington DC, Georgetown University Press, 1999; Christopher Janosik, `Catholic Identity in Catholic Higher Education,’ Catholic Education, 3 (1), September 1999; William Shea, Trying Times,Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1999 and Alice Gallin, Negotiating Identity, University of Notre Dame Press, 2000; John Wilcox and Irene King (eds), Enhancing Religious Identity, Washington DC, Georgetown University Press, 2000.
Denis McLaughlin, The Catholic School: Paradoxes and Challenges, Strathfield, NSW, St Pauls Publications, 2000, p.36. For an assessment of past achievement and tasks ahead for Catholic schools in Australia, see John McMahon, Helga Neidhart & Judith Chapman (eds), Leading the Catholic School, Richmond, Victoria, Spectum Publications, 1997 and Ross Keane & Dan Riley (eds), Quality Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of Brisbane, 1997.
Denis McLaughlin, [quoting Murphy], op.cit., p.37.
Ibid., pp.69–70.
V. A. McClelland, as quoted by McLaughlin, op. cit., p.70.
For assessments of recent difficulties and progress and of choices to be made and priorities to be addressed in US Catholic schools, see James Youniss and John Convey, Catholic Schools at the Crossroads,New York, Teachers College Press, 1999; Youniss, Convey and McLellan (eds), The Catholic Character of Catholic Schools, University of Notre Dame Press, 2000; Thomas Hunt, Thomas Oldenski and Theodore Wallace (eds), Catholic School Leadership, London, Falmer Press, 2000.
Chester Gillis, Roman Catholicism in America,New York, Columbia University Press, 1999, p.261.
Ibid., p.264.
Alexandra Klaushofer, quoting Charles Taylor in `Faith Beyond Nihilism: The Retrieval of Theism in Milbank and Taylor’, The Heythrop Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, April 1999, p.142.
Padraig Hogan, ‘Europe and the World of Learning: Orthodoxy and Aspiration in the Wake of Modernity’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 32, (3), 1998, p.362.
Ibid., p.367.
The need for such a re-articulation of the rationale for Catholic education is highlighted by William Losito in Hunt (2000, p.59). “There is no community of Catholic intellectuals pursuing a coherent agenda of inquiry to serve as a significant resource for educational leaders who are grappling with the formulation of a sacred vision for education in a secular, pluralistic society.” Losito also laments (p.60) the failure to engage in a sustained dialogue about the content of the guidance documents on education that have been issued by Rome in the thirty-five years since closure of the Second Vatican Council. An important exception to this lack of engagement is Gini Shimabukuro. See Shimabukuro, A Call to Reflection: A Teacher’s Guide to Catholic Identity for the 2/st Century, Washington, DC, The National Catholic Educational Association, 1998.
Charles Taylor, in A Catholic Modernity? edited by James Heft, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, p.14.
Ibid.
Shea, ibid., pp.43–44.
Ibid., p.55.
Ibid., p.57.
Marvin O’Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis, Washington, D.C., Catholic University of America Press, 1994, pp.155–6.
By Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, from 1995 onwards. The first two of nine projected volumes have appeared so far.
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Sullivan, J. (2001). Two Polarities: An Interpretative Key. In: Catholic Education: Distinctive and Inclusive. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0988-0_1
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